Pate a Choux Unit

Pate a Choux! I was excited to move on to this unit so that I can do something I've never done before. I was also working without a partner for the unit (we have an odd number in our class now, and the Chef selected me because I am the top student!).

It's a dough that you start on the stove, with butter, water, salt and sugar - boil it, and then add flour. Cook to dry it out, transfer to a mixer, and beat until all the steam is let out. Add eggs one at a time until just the right consistency. Pipe and bake.

Once we got the dough down, its just a matter of shaping and filling. The first day we made vanilla, coffee, and chocolate eclairs. Eclairs are very difficult to get right. Especially the glaze. Below are mine, the ones on the plate are the chefs (just so you can see what I was aiming for). They are filled with a flavored creme legere.

On Day 2 of Pate a choux we made Cygnes (Swans), Profiteroles (not pictured) and Paris Brest. The swans are decoratively piped choux, cut, and filled with creme patisserie, and creme chantilly. AWWWWWW SO ROMANTIC!

Paris Brest is a piped choux that is sprinkled with almonds and then baked, to reveal a hollowed out center. We then cut it in half, and filled it with creme paris brest (praline creme chiboust = pastry cream + butter + praline paste). It was delicious, although I would have preferred less creme paris brest to choux- it was analogous to eating a slice of bread with half a stick of butter on top.

Gruyeres. Pate a choux with gruyere and spices, then baked. Basically the OGs of cheese puffs.

Gateaux St. Honore. Weirdest thing ever. Pate Brisee crust with choux piped onto it. Little choux balls dipped in caramel, filled with creme st. honore, placed on edge of cake. Filled in center with creme st honore (which is pastry cream + gelatin + Italian meringue). Apparently these things are rarely made, and I can understand why. They are a pain in the ass, and they have to be served immediately, and you cannot stick them in the refrigerator. Oh and you have to use a special piping tip that is used only for this cake apparently. Other than that, it was strangely tasty.

And the croquembouche, commonly referred to in my class as the "cock n bush". The traditional French wedding cake has a nougatine base, with creme legere filled and caramel dipped choux balls piled on top of each other. We used a pate brisee base, and didn't fill ours. This was mostly a decoration-oriented class. We had the option of dipping our caramel balls in different flavorings (coconut, pistachio, cocoa nibs, and pearl sugar), and then if we had time doing little caramel decorations. I finished relatively quickly, and got a little crazy with my caramel decorations, and it ended up looking like a spider web descended on my cock n bush. That being said, I was happy with my results.

Thus concluded our pate a choux unit. When I get my exam results back in full, I will post about my unit exam.

Test day, Unit 1 : Tarts and Cookies

My first exam at pastry school! Wooo hooo! It consisted of a 1 hour written exam, and a 3 hour practical. We didn't know what was going to be on the practical, so we had to be ready for everything. Each of us had to make a large tart, 2 tartlets, and a cookie. There were 4 different sets, and Chef Claudia assigned us a number corresponding to a set, and that was what we had to make.

I had to make the French nut tart, 2 ganache tartlets, and the bourbon pecan cookies. In my opinon, this was the hardest grouping. The French nut tart required a lot of things to be made perfectly, and then combine them perfectly- basically a lot of things could go wrong. The ganache tartlets are easy, but the decoration is a pain in the ass. The Bourbon pecan cookies- whatever.

I whizzed through my written exam (it was easy, and I had studied) and started planning for my practical with my remaining time. I was a little bit shaky at first, darting around, making sure my station was clean, while doing 3 tasks at once. I felt confident about my timing though. In the last 20 minutes, I was rolling. My French tart came out beautifully, and I was making my ganache tartlets. I rushed through that a bit too much, and whisked my ganache too roughly and incorporated some air bubbles. I tapped it a couple of times, hoping to release some air, and poured them into the shells.

Then I checked my cookies in the oven to rotate them. They were flat. They're supposed to be 1/4" thick, which is how I cut them. I must have mis-scaled. My heart sank. I decided to finish baking them anyway, so at least I could show something to the chefs. They had to rest in the fridge for an hour, so there was no time to remake them. There was nothing I could do. Flustered, I finished the decoration, and presented my product.

Chef said my nut tart was perfect. Great crust, perfect filling, perfectly baked. She said my ganache tartlets were good. Perfect crust, ganache a good consistency, but I had some air bubbles still and my decoration was a bit shaky. This I knew. She came to the cookies, and said "it broke my heart when I saw these cookies". She said I must have mis-scaled something (likely the butter or the sugar). We had to halve the recipe, so it is likely that I messed up in the scaling. She said that my procedure, and the ultimate taste and texture of the cookie was good though.

I was really bummed. In a bad mood for days. While happy I did something "perfectly", I couldn't believe I would make such a stupid mistake. I thought the best I could do on my test was a 66, given that one of my pieces was garbage.

Then I got my results back. A 103 on my written test (I got everything right, including the bonus questions), a 95 on one of my class days, a 97 on the other, and a 95 on my practical. Average for the unit was a 97. I could not believe it. This test was a sham- I deserved a much lower grade on my practical. I can't say I'm not happy, though.

Pastry classes, Days 11-12

Day 11

Dried Cherry Sablee Cookies. There was not much to these. It is essentially a flavored shortbread dough that we cut into different shapes. We brushed it with a kirsch and powdered sugar glaze.

Caramel- Nut Tart. This was pretty excellent. Pate sucree dough. We then made a caramel sauce using a wet caramel, then added cream, milk, glucose, and walnuts, to make a caramel - nut sauce thing. The whole time I was making it, I was thinking how good it would be on my morning oatmeal. We spread the cooled mixture in the tart shell, spread some almond cream on top, and baked it. The almond cream made a nice crust on top, so it turned into almost a filled pie. It was delicious!

Mini "Tart tatin". This was used an example of what to do with leftover pastry dough. We made a dry caramel (it was caramel day), poured it into molds. Then placed apples in it, with cut sucree on top. Once it was baked, we flipped them over, revealing a shell with gooey caramel apples in it. I might over burnt my caramel a little too much - it was a bit more bitter than I would have liked. There was nothing to stop the cooking process, so you had to intuit 30 seconds before it would be done. I don't think I got that part down. It was still really tasty though.

My after school snack: (note how the caramel nut tart looks on the inside!)

Day 12

Pastry classes, Day 10

We had a substitute teacher on Day 10- Chef Tom. I am a huge fan of Chef Tom. He was a lot more patient than Chef Claudia and Chef Isra. And I don't know if it was just the curriculum for that particular class, but I felt like I learned more too. Don't get me wrong, I really like Chef Claudia (I don't particularly like Chef Isra) but they all have different teaching styles.

We also got to make two different kinds of chocolate tarts, so I am NOT going to hate on that.

Chocolate Ganache Tart. This is essentially intense chocolate poured into a flaky crust, and set. This was incredibly easy to make (pour heavy cream over chocolate, butter, trimoline, pour into mold, set) and very delicious. I could eat this for breakfast every day.

Chocolate Bavarian Tart. A lot more complicated to make, but very good. Bavarian cream = creme anglaise + gelatin + creme fouette. These are the things I get to learn! I learn a couple of little building blocks and I can put them together in so many ways, its really cool. Very complicated things can get broken down into simple explanations. I know how to make creme anglaise, and creme fouette, and I know in general how to go about combining all of them. Voila- a chocolate bavarian tart!

This was very good. Like chocolate pudding with more cream and a bit more jello-y in a tart? Maybe thats a good explanation. It has a pudding like consistency, that when it hits the temperature of your mouth melts into creamy chocolate. Its good. Eating-all-of-it-so-Adam-wouldn't-know-how-much-I actually-ate-when-he sees-it-in-the-morning good.

Pastry classes, Days 7-9

I have a lot to go over, so I am going to combine days 7, 8 and 9 into one post.

Day 7

Onion Tart. It was nice to do something savory. Looks like barf, tastes good. Caramelized onions, blue cheese, walnuts, and tomatoes on pate brisee. Basically a pizza a la francais.

Fig Newtons. Gotta love the newtons. Great source of FIBAH! These were great, especially because we cooked the figs down with a little bourbon. Wasn't a huge fan of the dough though, I like a flakier cream cheese dough more. And I like the cookies a little bit smaller. Overall though, great flavor and texture.

My new friends Omar and Rachel feeling good after a long hard class:

Day 8

Spritzkakor cookies. Cool name, not very exciting cookie. Relatively basic butter cookie with light lemon flavoring, piped in rosettes (my hand hurt) and then with pecan, chocolate, or raspberry filling. Had a slightly dry, crumbly texture. Certainly better than the supermarket variety.

Clafoutis aux Cerises. Basically a cherry custard tart. Similar in style to the Tart Alsacienne only WAY BETTER. Matter fact, this tart was BOMB. One of the best ones yet! The cherries provided a really nice tartness, and the custard part was really nice and smooth. And it didn't look gross!

Day 9

Lemon Tartlets. Overall, this was an excellent endeavor. Let me break it down for you. Flaky, pate brisee crust. Lemon curd (perfectly made, I may add) set with gelatin. Candied lemon peel. Swiss meringue, gently torched. I loved making them, and I loved eating them. We learned a lot by making these - all about meringues and curds! I will have some fond memories of torching the top and smelling toasted marshmallow.

French Nut Tart. I've never eaten anything like this before. Pate sucree, thin layer of jam, toasted almonds, and then almond cream beaten with almond and hazelnut flours, with incorporated whipped egg whites. The top layer puffed up a bit, so it was almost like a thin cake in a tart. I was surprised at how good it was actually. Note sophisticated top design skills. Its called making a paper snowflake template. I DIDNT GO TO ART SCHOOL FOR NOTHING BITCHES!